Giveaway #1: Top 100 Baby Purees

This post is actually a giveaway for a WONDERFUL book by Annabel Karmel called Top 100 Baby Purees. Ms. Karmel is a children's nutrition expert from the UK, and I have used, loved, and memorized this book since Baby H was 5 months old. It is not just a compilation of recipes for making your own baby purees. She gives very helpful hints and important facts throughout the book much in the same way the "x for Dummies" books do. They seem to pop out at you at the perfect times for the age of your baby. One of the first interesting facts I learned was that in order to properly absorb certain nutrients such as beta-carotene, you also need to provide baby with a fat source. I mashed a lot of yam with breast milk at first, then moved on to unsalted butter and now organic, whole milk and/or walnuts or fish. 

She's obviously into food and likes cooking, so the entire thing is written from the perspective that you are going to enjoy preparing nutritious meals for your children and have fun with it. It is my belief after having done this as well as purchased store-bought baby food, that not only is it so much cheaper to prep your own baby food, but I can't even begin to put into words how the nutrition rates. BAH and I noticed that in a lot of the meat baby food (and this was the Earth's Best brand) the meat would be the third ingredient after water and usually apples...which are mostly water. 

Make of this what you will, but I stand by my opinion that if you are making food for yourself, regardless of if you work outside of or in the home, or you sit around on your ass all day eating bonbons, there is no reason why your kid can't at least get one homemade meal a day. It certainly helps if you enjoy doing it! 

This is the easiest, breeziest giveaway you will ever come across, short of someone literally just handing you the thing. I am not going to make you "like" anything or repost anything. Seriously? Just send me a good, old-fashioned email at beccaswilderness(at)gmail(dot)com or leave a comment on this post. I'll throw your name into a hat and contact you if you are drawn. The condition of the book is near perfect. I got what I needed from it and would love to pass it on to someone else. Best of luck. This giveaway will end December 1.